Page 51

Veronica

“A re we there yet?” Veronica asks, noticing how Kael has suddenly paused in the middle of nowhere, his hands firmly on her shoulders.

“Yes.” His warm breath tickles her ear and her heart pounds in her chest.

She really had no clue what Kael’s great idea of a wedding night was when they slipped into the car and left the apartment. Or what plans he has that can help her find Marlene within four hours.

And even now, as they navigate through the unknown ground with a blindfold held tightly over her face, the scent of damp air and rotten leaves curling in the air, intense enough to taste, she still wonders what exactly is happening.

“Can I take off my blindfold?” Her hand skims over the black silk material held over her face.

“Not yet, ladybird.” A low hum rumbles in his chest as he gently yanks her hand away, pressing it against her side. He turns her around, his hands still clasped around her shoulders until she’s facing him. She shivers gently when his cold fingers brush against her chin, stroking it with a ghostly pressure.

“Ladybird,” his breath tickles her face.

“Yes?” Her voice is so low she barely hears it herself.

“We’re gonna have a little fun, alright?”

She nods, but what she actually wants to do is shake her head, open her mouth, and protest against this silly, unnecessary game.

He is dragging her out of this country in the next few hours. All she desperately wants to do is see her best friend and tell him goodbye—until she figures out a brilliant escape plan from Russia—then stop by to check on Carla and hopefully find Marlene perched on the barstool in the kitchen, sipping black coffee, or booze—anyone actually, as far as she isn’t dead somewhere.

And if she can’t get any of this, she wants to sleep the rest of the night away and not be tortured with the reality where she hops on the jet and flies far away from Shiro. She has no strength for games, not in the middle of the night, and definitely not when the night is this cold. But it’s Kael Volkov. And Kael Volkov always gets what he wants.

“You are gonna count to ten, okay?” The pad of his thumb brushes over her lower lip, and her lips quiver at his electric touch. “On ten, you can take off the blindfolds.”

“Okay,” she whispers, shivering when a cold wind sweeps across her body, little bumps appearing on her arm. He should have at least warned her to wear a sweater if he was taking her this far and to a place this cold.

“Remember, take off the blindfold at ten.” His voice intermingles with the cold wind. Her throat dries up. Her heart begins to pound, a weight resting on her chest. She doesn’t want to play, but his fingers skim over her wrist, a featherlight touch anchoring her in place.

He is not going to hurt her. At least not today, not now. He wants something from her, and that, she has begun to realize. He’s going to keep her around a little longer until he gets that—whatever it is. So even when his steps recede and fear curls tight in her ribs like a wicked twine, she knows that he isn’t going to hurt her.

So she counts…

“One.”

Something shifts in the air, a flash of brightness like lightning augmenting the moody cloud. Her hands lift, the instinct to protect herself causing her to wrap them tightly around her body.

“Two.”

A breath of wind combs fingers through her air, and the scent of damp earth and decay causes her nose to crinkle.

“Three.”

She hears a crunch of gravel and distant retreating footsteps.

“Four.”

No, no, something isn’t right. Something is happening. There’s a strange presence.

“Five.”

Her breath quickens, her body trembling.

“Six.”

There’s silence. The type that feels alive, pressing against her chest.

“Seven.”

Graveyard?

I can’t believe this bloody wanker took me to a fucking graveyard! The thought echoes in her ears.

“Eight.”

Cold fingers of dread skim her spine, whisking hair from her face and brushing against her cheekbone.

“Nine.”

Her breath turns shallow as sweat coats her skin, her legs trembling.

“Ten.”

She rips off the blindfold.

The darkness is vast, swallowing everything in its grasp as the graveyard stretches around her, quiet and still, a sea of headstones jutting out of the damp earth like jagged teeth.

Kael is nowhere to be found.

She is alone.

A howl rips from her throat, loud, raw, and shattering. Her breath shuddering out of her lungs, a heavy weight like a noose around her neck as she spins, frantic, her pulse hammering against her ribs.

Then she hears it, a crunch of gravel beneath a movement. She gasps, spinning toward the direction the sound comes from. And then she sees it, a shadow flickering behind a gravestone, so fleeting she can mistake it for the trick of the lightning flashing across the sky. But it’s there, she can feel it.

There’s a single beat of silence, adrenaline brewing in her blood as her eyes remain pin on the gravestone, waiting for the shadow.

Another beat.

Another.

Then he steps out. And her heart drops.

It’s a ghost—well, a man with a grotesque ghostly face, hollow-eyed, bone-white in the dim glow of the moonlight.

He tilts his head to the side, studying her.

The first drop of rain lands on her left cheek.

Then he lunges at her.

She runs.

Then another drop of rain.

She hears him behind her, the loud staccato of heavy boots against gravel and damp soil.

Then a thousand drops of rain at a time.

Her doc martens skids over scattered graves, damp soil, broken branches, adrenaline charging in her veins, her heart pounding in her chest as she runs.

The sky rips open in anger, unleashing a downpour so violent, so raging it drowns the world in sounds. The rain hammers against stone, against earth and her trembling skin. The scent of wet soil and rot thickens, suffocating.

And the harder she runs, the closer he seems to get. She takes a step, and he takes a thousand leaps right after her.

The harder the rain pours, the slicker the earth beneath her feet, and the more unsteady her ground as she continues to lose her balance and stumble, grabbing onto cracked headstones to hold herself up before she continues again.

Water pools in the erosion between graves, scooping into her shoes, soaking her white socks that have now taken a dirty shade of brown. Her uniform clings to her body, nearly becoming one with her olive skin. Water gathers in her lids, some escaping into her mouth as she pants.

She can barely see, barely breathe as wind howls through the graveyard, wailing through jagged iron gates, plastering her fiery hair on her face.

But she can’t stop. Not even for a minute. He is behind her. He is so close she can feel his breath on the nape of her neck. She can feel the bony, cold fingers brushing against her wrist.

But she continues to run even when her lungs begin to constrict and her chest burns. She runs even when the rain stings her eyes and the sharp water chokes her. She runs even when the world becomes a blur of shadows and headstones.

Then all of a sudden, she can no longer run as her limbs have started to go limp. She veers around a tomb that looks newer than most, nameless, except the date of the person’s death. She squats, her body pressing against the cold concrete, her breath ragged, heart pounding, her calves aching.

It seems she has lost him. No, she prays she has lost him, blended with the shadow, become one with the dead.

For a minute or more, she rests her head against the stone, her eyes close as she tries to catch her breath. Then suddenly, she senses it, a shadow hovering over her, a barely audible crunch of boot against sodden soil, and a finger brushing against her wrist.

A scream tears out of her throat as the cold fingers tighten around her wrist, yanking her to her feet.

“Please, please, please.” Eyes still sealed shut, she refuses to see the dead holding onto her, pressing her against a wet and cold body, clasping a hand over her mouth to silence her.

Then she feels it, cold lips brushing against the lobe of her ear. “Now that was a good run, wasn’t it?”

The voice is distorted over the heavy downpour, though eerily familiar, sending shivers of fear down her spine.

“Open your eyes,” it urges, cold fingers brushing against her chin as he forces her eyes to meet his. “Look at me.”

She shakes her head, her body trembling, her heart hammering against her chest.

“I said open your eyes,” he growls, his fingers digging into her chin. She whimpers, slowly snapping her eyes open.

A loud gasp tears through her lips, a gentle stagger backward but he yanks her back until her body is pressing impossibly against the lean muscles under his soft cotton shirt. The mask is still on his face and closer, it looks more grotesque. Her heart pounds, blood rushing in her ears.

“I can hear your heartbeat,” he whispers, head tilting as if listening more closely. “I can taste your fear.”

Rain trickles down her temples, cold as ice, mixing with the sweat beading at her nape. Her lashes are heavy, soaked, but she forces her eyes to stay open, refusing to blink.

“Ladybird.”

A breath shudders out of her at the name, the ridiculous, endearing thing he has always called her. She never cared much for it before, never stopped to wonder why he chose it. But right now, it’s her lifeline—proof that he’s here with her, not some unresting spirit, a crazed phantom conjured by the storm and the graves surrounding her.

“Tonight, I’ll eat all your fears, all your tears, and the horror in those pretty eyes.”

His knuckles brush her cheek, ice-cold, sending a tremor through her. The other hand trails lower, over soaked fabric and trembling flesh, until it cups her ass.

“Tell me, ladybird.”

A whimper escapes her lips as his thumb presses inside her mouth, silencing her. She gasps softly around the digit, her body caught between the remnants of fear and the slow, creeping heat curling at her core.

“Have you ever been fucked by a ghost?”

She shakes her head, the motion weak, dazed. The mixture of adrenaline and desire turns electric inside her, sizzling beneath her skin as rain beats down in relentless torrents.

A gasp tears from her throat when he flips her, forcing her down onto her knees over the nameless, barely standing gravestone. The stone digs into her palms as she catches herself, wet soil yielding beneath her fingers.

A tug, firm but measured, guides her forward, her hands sinking into the sodden earth while her hips are raised.

The air shifts behind her, thick with heat and something more dangerous.

She barely breathes as he kneels, his fingers catching the hem of her skirt, rolling it up her waist in one slow, deliberate motion. A gust of cold air kisses her exposed skin before her soaked panties are yanked down, the elastic biting her thighs.

“Try not to make a sound.” His body presses flush against hers, his lips at her ear, his voice a ghostly rasp. “They like it quiet around here.”

A fist tangles in her hair, jerking her head back as a sharp whimper catches in her throat. The night feels alive around them, the trees whispering, the rain murmuring, the graves holding their breath.

Then she feels it.

His cock glides over her, teasing, brushing against her swollen clit before dragging lower.

A violent shiver wracks through her arms as he pushes inside, stretching her in one hard thrust, knocking a moan loose from her lips.

“Oh, god.”

Her fingers claw at the dirt as he pulls out and slams back into her, each thrust harder, deeper, more punishing. The storm inside her builds; an intoxicating mixture of fear, arousal, and the forbidden.

Tears cling to her lashes—maybe it’s the rain, maybe it’s everything all at once. The weight of the night, the grave beneath her, the ghostly figure behind her claiming her like she belongs to him. She tightens around him, her body betraying every ounce of sense she once had, every warning she should have heeded.

His voice is a low snarl at her ear, dragging her deeper into the abyss. “Next time a ghost comes out of the shadows to scare you…” He thrusts into her harder, punctuating each word, each sinful promise. “Remember how you were fucked by one. And remember how you came apart, dripping all over your stepmother’s fucking grave.”

What?

Step what?

“Yes, ladybird,” he rasps, his voice wrapped in smoke as he slams into her, his nails digging into her hip. “You’re currently being fucked like a slut on the grave of your nightmare.”

He thrusts harder, his breath thick with cruelty, searing the shell of her ears.

“She screamed, you know,” he murmurs, voice dripping with something reverent. “Marlene, your vicious stepmother. I made sure she did. Because I gave her a chance to redeem herself when I saw your scars. But that night, she fucking pushed me.”

A shiver races her spine, but it isn’t fear that tightens around her ribs. It isn’t revulsion that sends a pulse of heat between her thighs.

“She begged.” He drags his teeth over the side of her neck, the motion a mockery of tenderness. “Called for you at one point, staring at your door, hoping you would jump in to save her. But she forgot she knocked you out cold, left you to die.”

A broken moan stumbles from her lips, her nail digging deeper into the damp soil as pleasure sinks its teeth into her.

His hips roll, measured and punishing, his nails burrowing deep enough into her skin to bruise.

“She sounded like a wounded animal when I took my dagger to her fingers, one by one. The way she gurgles when the last one dropped—”

She clenches, a sharp gasp escaping her lips. The shame, the filth, the sheer obscenity of it all swallows her whole.

He chuckles darkly. “You like that, don’t you?” He licks the spot below her ear, savoring the tremor in her muscles. “Is this the darkness I have been waiting for?”

Another brutal thrust, another wave of pleasure crashing against the horror of his words. The fear still lingers, a whisper at the edges, but it’s drowned by something deeper. Something she can’t name.

Something he is pulling from her, one filthy, aching stroke at a time.